Paper Cranes
by The True Creature of the Night
Summary: Humanstuck! high school AU karnep Karkat cant stand how childish Nepeta acted. he always assumed it had something to do with a mental disorder until he is forced to complete an English project with her and realizing that her life isn't quite how it appeared.
1. Chapter 1

Paper cranes

When Karkat thought of the weird kids at school his mind went to Nepeta and her friends. Maybe it was because he was currently sitting in class, staring at the back of her head while she tried to slip her hat back on without the teacher noticing. Her and her friends weren't the bad kids at all; neither were they the kids that everyone tried to stay away from, but they were the most unlikely of friends. He didn't call them 'Nepeta's group' because she was in charge or anything but she just seemed to come to mind first. If you had to say one of them was the leader it would be Equius because he was the only out of them that didn't have some sort of mental or physical disability.

In the group you had Tavros, Terezi, Equius, and Nepeta. Tavros was the youngest, only a sophomore in a group of juniors. He was stuck in a wheelchair all the time though. He lost both of his legs in a car accident a few years back. He had prosthetics but they were all for looks. Even with the lack of legs he seemed to make up for it with a good attitude on life. But it was easy to tell that he strongly relied on his friends. If it weren't for them he'd be bullied and taken advantage of. I guess that's why every school needs a group of misfits like them.

Terezi was medium height and you never saw her without a mischievous smile and her bright red glasses. The only reason she got away with everything she did was because she was blind. Or at least said she was. That matter was still up for debate. You wouldn't know she was blind if you just saw her on the street because other than the fact that her eyes never focused on anything, she walked like she knew where she was going. She kept a cane with her but never used it claiming that she could see by smell, only Nepeta believed that though.

Equius was huge. He was the best wrestler at the school and was probably the only reason the team did so well. Besides that he was also on the robotics team but word was he was only in it because his crush, Aradia, was in it. He was quiet and obedient to people with more authority than him but he wasn't afraid to stand up to any student. Technically he was a senior but he was missing a few classes and wouldn't be graduating until next year. Some said he did that intentionally to make sure that Nepeta always had someone. He had basically become her protector. He never wanted to see her bullied like she was first semester of freshman year. It's kinda sweet, really.

And now, to Nepeta herself. The short haired blonde girl sat in front of him and had slipped her hat back on. She had some connection to the hat or something. She would wear it all the time and when the teachers told her to take it off it would be off her head for all of five minutes at the most. Karkat didn't understand the significance of the hat. It was a simple blue hat with some sort of cat face on the front of it. She had some strange obsession with cats. She had worn a cat tail to school for a while until people had bullied her and Equius advised her not to wear it anymore.

Right now she was looking around the room like she'd never seen it before. It was possible saying that it was the first day of the school year but the English three classrooms was nothing special. Her eyes followed the walls around round the room. She turned around in her chair and came eye to eye with Karkat.

"Hello!" she said like a third grader trying to make a new friend.

"What do you want?" Karkat responded. He knew he shouldn't be rude to her since everyone knew that she had something not right with her head but the short, dark haired Karkat had an even shorter temper.

The teacher passed out a first day, 'introduce yourself' kinda assignment.

"What's this?" Nepeta asked no one in particular.

"A stupid fucking assessment so the teacher can pretend that she gives a shit about us as people," Karkat grumbled debating whether to do the damn thing or not.

The short junior looked up to see the blonde girl scribble down some answers, turn the paper over and start doodling on the back. He wouldn't tell her but she was a really good artist. She was hunched over the corner of his desk drawing a picture of the nearby beach.

"Get of my desk!" he said louder than he should've causing a few heads to turn in his direction.

She moved out of the way without even looking up from the paper.

For the rest of class people sat there talking to friends and such. Karkat didn't know a single person in class and after yelling already he didn't have many people begging to talk to him. There were only a few minutes left of class and Karkat went through his stuff to make sure he had everything once more.

Out of nowhere Nepeta peeked her head over his desk.

"I'm Nepeta by the way," she said watching the dark haired kid put away the last of his stuff.

"Yeah," was all he responded with hoping that she would get the hint and leave.

"You're Karkat. Terezi talks about you sometimes."

Karkat knew Terezi a bit. They weren't close anymore but they still hung out every once in a while.

The bell rang and the small blond girl walked out of the room getting told to take off her hat once again.

When Karkat looked up on his desk a paper crane sat there. He could see the drawing of the beach that Nepeta had put on the back of her assignment. He thought that she had left it there by accident and decided to turn it in on his way out.


	2. Chapter 2

Walking out of his English class Karkat was almost run into by his skyscraper of a friend. Gamzee was as tall as most of the basketball players but wasn't good at the sport at all. In fact he wasn't really good at much. His black hair fell half in front of his drugged eyes. I'm not advocating drugs here but in Gamzee's case I would much rather have him high than sober.

I thought I had anger issues until I met Gamzee. He got transferred here after getting expelled from his last school. He never said what he did to get expelled but rumors went around and a few said that he killed someone but there was never enough evidence to prove it was him and Karkat wasn't one to believe outrageous rumors like that.

His family had tried to get him help. They took him to the doctor and got him some meds to keep his anger in check. The boy never once took the meds. He just let the little bottles pile up in him room. They kept prescribing him a higher dosage and the amount of pills almost doubled in a few weeks. Eventually, with no other option, his parents sent him down here to Florida to live with a new family. He took his meds with him and soon realized that his body was sensitive to the meds. After some experimenting he found out could get high if he took a few or took it with some other concoction of pills. These days he was hardly ever sober but it was for the better.

Karkat's tall friend followed behind him all the way to where the group normally sat at lunch. Gamzee stepped on his heels the whole way and Karkat was taking deep breaths trying to put up with his tall, clumsy friend.

When they arrived Eridan and Feferi were already standing by the lockers chatting.

Eridan was born in a wealthy family. He lived in some huge ostinatos house in a gated community with a huge pool out back and a large, overly manicured lawn. He was an only child and everything he ever wanted was handed to him on a silver platter. That is except for the girl of his dreams.

Feferi was debatably the most beautiful girl at the school. She had long, wavy, black hair most of the way down her back and warm, chocolate eyes that made you feel at home. She was of Cuban decent and didn't have nearly the money that Eridan had. Her mother was a flight attendant so she wasn't at home much so she lived with her father who owned a pet shop on the beach. It was defiantly based for the tourists but pleasant none the less.

The typical beginning of semester chat started which included questions about your classes and the people in them. Karkat brought up having 'the mental compromised cat lady' in his class and got a scolding look from the too-kind Feferi.

Half way through lunch Eridan offered to go and pick some food up from people. He was the only one with a car or an off campus permit. Most of the others lived close enough to everything that a car was a pretty useless object other than a status item.

The offer was declined by all. The rich kid ran his fingers through his bleached blonde and purple hair and shrugged, it was obvious that he wanted to show off his new car. The hair was a new thing though. He normally kept it dyed black with the customary purple bangs but even Karkat had to say that the blonde looked kind of nice against his tanned Caucasian skin.

"How's it going, freaks?" Terezi made her large entrance, swinging her can over her shoulder and almost taking an innocent bystander out in the process.

"Hey, Terezi," Karkat greeted. He wasn't surprised to see the blind girl; she showed up here every once in a while. Most of them time when Gamzee was away. Something happened between those two and saying that they didn't get along would be an understatement.

"You seen Kanaya anywhere? I can't seem to find her."

Kanaya was a friend of Karkat's. They weren't close but you could still consider them friends. She was the vampire girl that fell in love at first sight and made everyone's prom dresses. She wasn't popular until spring when everyone needs a dress and let me tell you, she made a fortune at it.

"Last I heard she was hanging out with Vriska," Karkat responded.

"Thanks. My bag malfunctioned after getting run over with a wheel chair." Terezi lifted the bag and a few scented markers fell out.

Karkat tried not to laugh as he bent over and picked them grape and green apple markers.

"So are they dating yet?" Terezi asked grabbing the markers out of his hand.

"No and I don't really care if they are. That shit-talking sociopath doesn't deserve Kanaya." Karkat wasn't the only one who hated her. In fact most of the school did. She was always lying and messing with people's heads just for her own amusement.

"Say what you'd like but I think they'd be a cute couple. Anyways, off to see if she'll fix my bag. See ya later," she winked, giggled, and walked away with her cane still over her left shoulder. One of her dragon stuffed animals was tied to it with a noose around its neck. It was almost funny how much stuff she got away with because she was blind. Or at least claimed to be.


	3. Chapter 3

Nepeta walked down the street to the beat of a nameless tune that was playing in her head. She was close enough to her house to see that one car sat sleeping in the driveway. That meant her mom was home. She was probably nursing a hangover or drowning it with more alcohol. She had an alcoholic mother and a verbally abusive father but she tried not to think about it much. Instead she made up a fantasy world and dreamed that she lived there in the world where nothing was wrong.

She climbed up the stairs to her porch and her cat, Muffin, was sitting on one of the deck chairs. Nepeta lightly stroked the cats gray-brown fur as it purred quietly and stretched. After the small cat finished waking up from her nice nap in the sun it stood next to the door and rub against Nepeta's legs until she opened the door.

"Thanks for being my only friend here," Nepeta whispered to the cat as it charged through the door the moment it opened.

The two of them walked over to Muffin's food bowl and filled it to the brim with cat food. Nepeta sat there a minuet before kissing the top of the cats head and grabbing her book bag again and heading out the door.

It wasn't too long of a walk over to Equius's house and even if it was it would be worth it. She didn't tell anyone that she was going but her parents would be glad she was gone and Equius's dad like her better anyway. Her best friend didn't have a mom. She died when he was hardly a year old. He never really let it get to him much; he was a lot like Nepeta in that aspect. His father dealt with it surprisingly well too. He was always in a good mood and was the nicest adult that Nepeta had ever met.

Forty-five minutes later she was knocking on her best friend's door.

"Come on in, Nepeta!" Equius dad called from the kitchen.

She opened the door to the house that she all but lived at.

"How are you, Mr. Zahhak?"

"Not too bad. Equius is up in the bonus room though I probably didn't have to tell you that."

"Thanks," Nepeta concluded before climbing the stairs to the bonus room that had basically been converted to a workout room.

Equius was sitting on a chair with a 20 pound weight in one hand. His phone was sitting in front of him with a 'message sent' alert. Nepeta curled up at his feet and didn't say a word. It continued like this for a while, long enough from Nepeta to get a short nap. Equius finally put down the weight sat down on the ground with the girl.

"How's school?" Nepeta asked stretching out her back.

The strong senior shrugged and didn't say anything.

"You've been texting Aradia haven't you?" Nepeta asked with a smug grin.

"Yes, I have."

"And…." Nepeta waited for some kind of response other than just a confirmation. "You've got to keep me updated on this kinda stuff," she giggled.

"She has feelings for Sollux."

"Are you sure? Did you say so?"

"No, I just assumed since—," He was cut off by the smaller girl.

"Then you still have a chance. You just have to make a move and stop being such a scaredy pants." The blonde teased.

"I am most certainly not a 'scaredy pants', Nepeta."

"Scaredy pants, scaredy pants, scaredy pants," She taunted in a sing-song voice.

"You are being foolish."

"You just have to get down on your knees and profess your love to her," Nepeta mimicked what she was saying before breaking into giggles.

The day continued and she stayed for diner and stayed after as well. As the night awoke she and Equius sat in his room working on their last minuet homework. After a soda and some faked math she decided to ask the unneeded question about spending the night.

It was very common for her to do that. Her mom was drunk often and with an abusive father everyone at the Zahhak house found it better for her to stay with them. The Zahhak's were a better family to her than her blood relatives.

The trundle bed was pulled out already with sheets and a pillow on it from her last stay. She curled up under the sheets on the close to the ground bed. It was always this time of night when her mind started working like a normal person with family problems. She'd cried herself to sleep before with Equius's arms around her.

"Equius?" her voice seemed so small and powerless in the dark room.

She just received a grunt in return since she was normally the one to ask the 'how are we even alive' questions at this time of night.

"If they find out about my parents do you think they'll take me away?" her voice had a particular emptiness to it. For a girl who seemed so carefree she was full of nothing but hollowness.

Equius rolled over and sighed.

"Don't worry about that. I'll make sure you stay right here with me. I won't let them take you."

The words were little comfort to the girl.

"Just get some sleep. If that happens we'll worry about it then." Equius rolled over to face the wall again.

"Night, Equius."

"Don't let the bed bugs bit."

"Bedbugs?" Nepeta exclaimed with fake surprise knowing well it was just an expression. "Where are the bedbugs? I'm gonna get them." She joked.

"Just go to sleep already."

"Party pooper," she said before stretching one last time and getting some sleep.


End file.
